


Plats Du Jour  Or:  Foreign Food

by mydogwatson



Series: Postcard Tales II [17]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen or Pre-Slash, Hiatus, M/M, Return
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 22:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7379059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydogwatson/pseuds/mydogwatson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock eats because John wants him to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plats Du Jour  Or:  Foreign Food

**Author's Note:**

> Another title that did not immediately inspire, but turned out to be rather fun. Hope you think so as well.
> 
> Thanks, as always, for the continuing comments and kudos. Each one brightens my day more than you can know.

He found an Italian restaurant in Vilnius.

The place was no match for Angelo’s, a feat that would have been impossible, of course, but he went inside anyway, choosing a table in the front window. That was not the wisest choice, of course, but by now he was almost beyond caring. He ordered lasagne, which was John’s favourite [the choice made Sherlock wonder if all travellers got so sentimental or only those who rather feared that they would never get home]. With the meal, he drank a glass of cheap red plonk.

By sitting in the window and looking out at the busy street, Sherlock could pretend that the chair across from him was not empty, that they were waiting for a murderous cabbie to appear, that everything was beginning all over again. This time, he would do it right. Which mostly meant that it would not end with him stepping off a rooftop.

If it was ended.

Was it?

He wondered if John ever went to Angelo’s now. Did he go with someone else and entertain her over the meal with amusing anecdotes about the madman he used to know?

All of which was really just a way of wondering if John ever thought about him at all anymore.

*

The Chinese place on the edge of the Siberian city was not promising, going by the state of the doorknob, but needs must. Sherlock knew that he had to refuel his transport before setting off to track down Moriarty’s local connection. Taz Moro was a man who made bombs and he was very good at his work. Now that his most frequent employer was no longer on the scene, Moro was increasingly indiscriminate as to his customer base.

He’d already made one bomb that had exploded on Baker Street and it was thought he was planning another.

Luckily for Sherlock, working with dangerous explosives was an inherently hazardous occupation, so he could do what he needed to do without actually confronting the man.

The surly Russian waiter finally brought him the fried rice and egg rolls he’d ordered, setting the food down and for the first time taking a close look at his only customer. Something barely noticeable shifted in the man’s eyes before he gave a fake smile and disappeared into the kitchen.

Sherlock didn’t know what had given him away. His hair was chopped short and auburn. He had an admittedly scraggly beard. But he had taken off the sunglasses to read the menu and not replaced them.

So when a stranger with green and silver eyes wandered into a Chinese café in Siberia on an otherwise quiet afternoon, the waiter might notice.

Sherlock swallowed one bite of the rice, threw some coins onto the table, and grabbed a couple of egg rolls before hurrying out.

*

Rio seemed an odd place to find an establishment called Her Ladyship’s Tearoom, but after thinking about it for no more than ten seconds, Sherlock went in. His hair had started to grow, but was still more red than not. The scraggly beard was now an equally scraggly goatee. And he left the sunglasses on.

Inside, it was all roses and sentimental [bad] paintings of an England that did not exist and never had. A few members of the mostly female cliental gave him a glance, but Sherlock ignored them and took a seat at one of the tiny tables, unfolding the flowered serviette onto his lap.

In Spanish, he ordered the afternoon tea.

The Earl Grey was not as good as what John made [used to make] for him. The sandwiches were fine. The scone with clotted cream and jam tasted rather divine, but the pastries were sadly not up to Mrs Hudson’s standard. He made a mental note to tell her that. Someday. One day.

His cracked rib was still aching from the unfortunate encounter the day before. The perpetrator had been taken into custody on various local charges, but he did not make it to the jail before being hauled off by two men in a long black car.

There had been no brotherly contact with Mycroft.

Sherlock, who had a plane to catch, lingered much longer than he should have over the tea. He didn’t want to go to New Zealand. He wanted to go home.

*

Over the years, Sherlock ate khanom chin and green papaya salad. He ate pot-au-feu and tapas, dak galbi and bulgogi. In Chicago he ate food cart hot dogs and deep dish pizza.

Most of the time he didn’t want to eat any of it. But his body needed nourishment. And, even more importantly, he knew that John thought semi-regular meals were important. John always wanted [used to want] him to eat.

*

It was a very long time before Sherlock was home again. Then even more time passed before all of the bad things were finally taken care. A lot of it was dangerous and some of it was sad, but now John was finally back in 221B for good. It felt as if they were on the cusp of something new, although neither of them was quite willing to name it yet.

On his first night back, the set of his shoulders more relaxed than it had been in years and the stress on his face sometimes replaced by a faint, indisputably fond smile, John went into the kitchen and banged around for a little while, before announcing that dinner was ready.

Sherlock protested that he wasn’t hungry, that eating would slow down his thinking, that he had hoped John would have changed his nagging ways. Then he sat down at the table and ate two servings of beans on toast, washing it all down with some of John’s most excellent tea.

**Author's Note:**

> Title From: Plats Du Jour or Foreign Food by Patience Gray and Primrose Boyd. Illustrated by David Gentleman.
> 
> I love these names.


End file.
